Talk:Raven Branwen/@comment-35819533-20180608184149
I know a lot of people are tired of arguments defending raven but I am going to try and make this sound as logical as possible. I'll start with people's main issue. Raven leaving yang. I believe there is common misconception with this entire event. Raven didn't leave yang because she feared salem or didn't care about yang. She left for a multitude of reasons, which can be inferred by her interactions. Everytime we have seen her interact with qrow, we have seen her try to convince him to return to the tribe, and same goes for yang. She has portals to these people so she obviously cares about them. This leads me to believe that one reason she left was to try and drive her team to join her or for them to abandon ozpin and try and live and survive for themselves. She calls them fools for following ozpin because she believes that he will lead them to their demise which is something she doesn't want. Another reason she left, is because of yang. Raven grew up in a tribe, and as we see, the tribe goes by the rules of "the strong living and the weak dying" and "every man for himself." We also see that in the tribe there seems to be a lack of children/familial bonds. This leads me to also believe that raven and qrow grew up without parents and instead were raised by the tribe collectively while also having to fend for themselves. This could have contributed to raven's ideals and darwinistic views. I bring this up, because she has tried to enforce these views on yang by leaving her and they, while also hurting yang in the process, eventually succeeded. Yang grew up with her dad, uncle, and sister, but raven still at least kept an eye on her from time to time. She wanted yang to grow up to be her own person, find her own path, and not rely on anyone. This is also shown by her remarks to yang by saying she was "strong, determined, and strong enough to make her dreams a reality." The final reason I believe she left is because of ozpin's war and her tribe. At first she was in the tribe but then when she graduated from beacon she also became pregnant. She had to stay with the baby for at least a little while so it only makes sense that she would eventually return back home. She saw the strife ozpin put people through during her time as a spy and thought that there was no good side to this war and that everyone involved would die. It makes sense that she would want to leave and defend her tribe, not just for her sake, but for the sake of the tribe as well. This also contributes to why she wanted her loved ones to abandon ozpin and join her so much. Now for another topic I am going to try and rationalize raven's views on murder, strength, and sacrifice. Raven is a murderer and I believe she has no problem having people know that. This is because she believes in her cause and her reasons for murder. Her murder of the spring maiden was seen to her as a mercy kill and I honestly believe that. She would not kill for power. If anything she would want nothing to do with the spring maiden but she still tried to help her and when she saw no hope in her survival she tried to give her the easiest and quickest way of death without years of fear and suffering, despite having known that she would carry the burden of being a maiden until she died. This shows raven's merciful side which is not often displayed. This can also tie in to her causes for murdering and destroying the villages. She believes these villages to be weak and probably thinks that they will not survive because of war, the grimm, and natural causes. Again, she probably murders these villages to give them the easy way out, which would also explain why she seems to take in the spring maiden and why there are so many people in raven's camp. She sees hope in the children and believes that they are the ones that can grow to be strong unlike the other members of the villages she plunders. She also probably does this to take the possessions of the villagers and to make sure her tribe is always supplied with whatever they need. This further dawns light on her views of sacrifice. She believes everyone deserves a life of their own choosing, but also believes that in Remnant only the strong can survive. This is why she is so against ozpin and salem. She believes that they use strong people for their own goals and are willing to do anything to them in order to help themselves, which raven doesn't believe she herself is doing and instead thinks that she is trying to save the strong and ease the pain of the weak. Now let's move on to raven's views of her loved ones. She obviously cares about them and everything she has done in the show reflects this based on her views. People say that she just uses her family to get what she wants and cares about herself more than yang. I don't believe this to be true at all. Now, to explain her using and not caring for her loved ones, this is something that I believe to be false, because of her views of her loved ones. Based on raven's views, she would probably do anything to make sure her loved ones are strong, which is further proven by her treatment of yang and qrow. She is only willing to save them if they are about to die. This is because, she believes that they will learn from their failures and their mistakes and has much faith in them, which is why she believes them to be strong and why she is frustrated with them. She didn't set them up for that ambush because she didn't care for them. She set them up for that ambush because she had faith that they would survive it and come back stronger. Raven telling vernal that yang "made her choice" was probably raven telling vernal that yang has to learn the consequences of her own actions and that raven can't show mercy or else yang won't learn. This is further proven by raven telling yang in the vault that "she warned her and gave her every opportunity to run away" and when she stated to yang this wasn't personal. She was expecting yang to feel betrayed but wanted her to realize this is what happens when you make stupid decisions and side with ozpin or salem. I don't believe she wants her brother dead either because she tried to convince him many times after she stated this to come back to the tribe. She obviously cared about him and wanted him to rejoin her. Now for the whole situation with the relic. Raven was put in a very tight predicament where no matter what she did she would have to risk something. She either obeyed salem directly, which she would never do, she would open the vault and leave the relic for anyone to take, ensuring that her tribe survives but also resulting in a situation where salem or ozpin could take the relic and use it for evil which she also didn't want, or she could take the relic herself. I think there are two possible reasons she did this. She either believed that her tribe, the relic, and the maiden powers were enough to fend off salem for a period of time, she wanted to make sure none of her loved ones were targeted by salem, or she wanted to use the relic as a means of forcing her loved ones and all of the strong people to follow/join her because she had a strong defense against salem and ozpin. After yang talking to her, she realized yang was willing to take the relic because she wanted to face salem head on and realized yang was strong enough to survive on her own and that yang was also strong enough to die in the name of her cause and believed that eventually hope would win even if it meant she died. Raven for the first time saw a glimpse of hope for her loved ones and was willing to let them make their own decision instead of enforcing her ideologies on them. She didn't leave yang with the relic because she cared little for her. She left yang with the relic, because she cared so much about her that she had full faith in her decisions, actions, and ideals. This leads me to believe that eventually, after a lot of convincing, raven will stop murdering innocents, and instead leave her own way of thinking to herself and let others truly have their own way of thinking, which was the main flaw in her actions before. She didn't trust even her loved ones opinions and wanted to enforce her lifestyle onto everyone, but now she will be more content with the strong's way of life. She will probably become a somewhat antihero, only fighting when necessary for what she believes in. Raven didn't truly run away in my eyes. She isn't really a coward. She isn't putting on a facade. She just has such a harsh mindset that she is willing to go to the largest of extremes for her causes. I know this was an extremely long analysis, and I am not condoning raven's actions, but I hope this further shoved light onto raven's character.